WILD POPTATOES IN
SOUTH AMERICA
Batatas selvagens na América do Sul
The Andes of South America are the home of the potato that has supported indigenous civilizations for thousands of years. As many as 4000 native potato varieties are still grown. The region around Lake Titicaca in southern Peru and northern Bolivia is particularly rich in genetic diversity, and the wild potatoes from here are valuable for their disease and pest resistance.(1)
Number of wild potato species per half degree grid cell in the Americas. The map shows five centers of species richness (from South to North): a northern Argentina, b Bolivia, csouthern Peru, d northern Peru, and e) central Mexico. Highest numbers of species richness are in northern Peru and northern Argentina. Large areas formed of one to two potato species can be found from eastern Argentina to the south-eastern coast of Brazil including Paraguay and Uruguay as well as from Colombia to southern Mexico and from northern Mexico to the south-eastern United States.
In the Andes of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, farmers grow varieties of potatoes that are never seen outside this region. These native Andean potatoes display extraordinary diversity of taste and texture and come in a fascinating array of shapes and colors; they are quite different from the white-fleshed, smooth-skinned and relatively bland varieties commonly grown in the rest of the world. For perhaps as long as 8000 years these native potatoes have been important in the nutrition and economy of Amerindian subsistence farmers, but they have been neglected by science and largely ignored by the potato and health food industrie.
Fonte
Jackson, M.T., J.G. Hawkes, B.S. Male-Kayiwa & N.W.M. Wanyera, 1988. The importance of the Bolivian wild potato species in breeding for Globodera pallida resistance. Plant Breeding 101, 261-268.
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